Thursday, May 25, 2006

When Idols out-sing the professionals

Thoughts from last night's grand finale:

Fact: Most of the 12 Idol finalists sang better than the stars who made guest appearances. Toni Braxton sounded terrible. Mary J. Blige was nothin' special. Meat Loaf looked and sounded half dead. Dionne Warwick's last note? What key was that in? But I like Dionne, and she's 66, so we'll give her a pass. The only celeb-Idol pairing I really liked was Al Jarreau and Paris Bennett. Al sounded pretty good, and I've always liked that song, "We're in This Love Together." And the Live/Chris Daughtry pairing was solid. Anyway, the point is, it's not easy to do that shit on live television -- without any studio enhancements, lip synching, or background help. And the Idols were clearly more practiced at it than their pro counterparts.

The notable exception to the guest star suckiness: Prince was great. And man, how much does it speak to Idol's acceptance by the singing biz that frickin' Prince not only cleared one of his songs to be performed for the first time earlier this season -- but then performed on the show? Not that legends haven't already been a big part of the show, from Stevie Wonder to Queen.

Your moment of Zen from the evening: clearly David Hasselhoff, shown crying in the audience when Taylor was crowned champion. That was just bizarre.

Have I mentioned Carrie Underwood has a good voice? As an anonymous non-religious person just told me a couple days ago, "She makes me want to listen to a song about Jesus."

Oh yeah, and the outcome... Taylor is certainly not as good a singer as several of the previous winners. But if he's marketed intelligently (and not forced to be a "pop star"), he could be a real success.